i have read through and signed up and looked at the how to’s.
there is a LOT of information and setup!
im limited on time.
im not sure if i should pay somebody to do this for me if that service exists, or just do it myself.
I would like to know how to set it up myself, but it does depend on hours needed to set it up and learn the system.
for my property business id like to change from excell to quickfile, but i cant afford the time if its a long process.
has anybody got a rough estimate on how long this would take me to setup, and then weekly/monthly admin? ill explain my setup below.
Ill be setting up quickfile from the beginning:
I have a number of single let properties.
I have 1x property where I rent out single rooms.
Rental income:
I get a monthly bank transfer for 1x property from the agent who manages it.
All others i manage myself and i get a monthly direct debit payment from gocardless.com
If a tenant misses a payment this is usually paid via bank transfer as a one off payment and so there is some bank transactions.
Deposits:
I get deposits from customers via bank transfer or via a card payment through stripe.
Other income:
I get a small amount of misc payment like holding deposits, small charges to the tenants for damages etc and these usually come via an invoice i create in invoiceninja.com and get paid through stripe. i would change and send the invoice through quickfile and allow them to pay via stripe or bank transfer.
Outgoings:
Each property has a mortgage which is paid monthly as a direct debit.
There is regular payments via card for advertising and other services.
Monthly direct debits are setup for your usual, insurance etc.
There is maintenance jobs to tradesmen/companies, and receipts for materials etc.
Other misc payments are also made, most of which are via card.
Bank account:
I currently use natwest but im happy to change if the autobank feed works better with another bank or other things work better.
I do have an accountant who does my company accounts and self assesment.
This is more for me and my records, to make it easy for me to pay somebody to do my admin and bookkeeping and so i can run reports and things i want to see.
It will obviously also help my accountant to use this rather than my excel workbook.
Thats pretty much my setup.
If i can make things simpler or easier i would love to.
If i could listen to / watch videos on the setup that would be great, if not im happy to read.
I can only comment as a reasonably long time user of Quickfile but I cannot see anything there that is too difficult or complex. I know I could have all that set up with bank feeds and Stripe/GC integration etc within a matter of hours.
For the outgoing invoices I’d guess a lot of them can be done with recurring invoices so each month it’s just a case of tagging them from the bank, probably take mere minutes. Or you could use the bank tagging rules to match certain transactions and create invoices on the fly. Personally I use both methods for different reasons, customer invoicing is done with recurring invoices and some of the suppliers I just use bank tagging rules to to create purchase invoices as they come in.
Miscellaneous invoices from contractors, just send them to the receipt hub as they arrive. Once a week (or once a month) just tag them as required, depending how many you have depends how long it takes but once you get the flow you’re looking at seconds per invoice, and then just tagging them on the bank feed as per sales invoices.
It’s free to use so just set up an account and get going, pretty easy to get most of it done and then start filling in the gaps as you go.
without actually doing it i may be slightly confused, but do some tasks require multiple processes?
if i get an invoice from a contractor, i have to scan or email in the receipt to the receipt hub, then create a transaction for this somewhere, then tag the receipt to the transaction, then tag the bank record of this to the transaction. is this correct? seems a bit long winded…?
for outgoing invoices, the tenants just pay via direct debit. would i create a recurring invoice to be emailed to the tenant, then tag the gocardless payment to the invoice, then tag the bank transaction to the invoice? again this seems a bit long winded…>
maybe im over thinking it. it just looks like a bit of wasted time or processes and would be much better to somehow all get done as one auto entry or process?
There is an option to delete all the account data once you have done practising so you could actually do the full end to end process then delete all the test transactions before using live data, if that helps.
There’s a few different workflows you could adopt. Yours seems to have far too many steps!
Personally I have bank feeds for all my current accounts and I email in all my invoices/receipts. I go to the receipt hub and enter all the purchases (where I could do most of the bank tagging too if I wanted to). Then I just tag bank transactions to purchases. That’s pretty much me done for the month then as I tag sales and anything else as I go too.
You seem to have got an extra step in here again, I think you are doubling up on the tagging in your mind.
As I say might be an idea to actually just get stuck in as I think you are making it sound more difficult than it is (especially with the extra steps that you have included!) but explaining and describing each step is always going to sound more complex than it really is anyway.
Just to add to @Lurch’s post, regarding this point:
If GoCardless is linked with QuickFile, you just set up the recurring invoice template. QuickFile will generate the invoice, email the invoice, initiate the direct debit collection and tag the invoice once the direct debit has been confirmed.
And the direct debit and emailing can be changed on a template-by-template basis. If you have credit on your account and the invoice template is suitable, we could even post the invoice for you if that’s your preferred choice.
if gocardless and quickfile are linked, the above sounds like it can all be automated which is what im after.
how does it work if a tenant/customers monthly direct debit to quickfile fails?
at the moment i get an email from gocardless letting me know its failed.
is there anything that can alert me from quickfile, can it then auto perform a task like re email the invoice and email to the customer, and what admin inside quickfile would be needed?
I haven’t had a GoCardless transaction fail so I don’t know what their process is for advising or making subsquent claims for the money. QF will automatically send three reminders for overdue invoices which run at intervals that you define. You can set some or all of these to CC to you to warn you of late/none payment. The text can be customised to fit your contract with the tennants.
Remember there is a lag between GC debiting the customer putting the money in your bank account. Taging of the invoice happens when you get the money so remember to put a little slack in triggering the reminder process so you don’t chase them when the money is in the pipeline…